US: Amazon.com Fights Union Activityby Steven Greenhouse, New York TimesNovember 29th, 2000Amazon.com has come out swinging in its fight to stop a new unionization drive, telling employees that unions are a greedy, for-profit business and advising managers on ways to detect when a group of workers is trying to back a union.

US: Computers Bad for Kidsby Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the CorporationOctober 5th, 2000Last month, the www.allianceforchildhood.net Alliance for Childhood a group of more than 75 educators, child-development and health authorities called for a time-out from the overwhelming pressure on educators and parents to computerize childhood.

WORLD: NGOs Tell World Bank "Don't Hijack the Internet"by Gumisai Mutume, Inter Press ServiceSeptember 21st, 2000Non-governmental organisations and academics are alarmed over the Global Gateway, a portal website project which the Bank says will be the ''the premier web entry point for information about poverty and sustainable development'' but which the NGOs say is flawed and non-participatory.

US: Sony Corporation Tracks Environmental Organizationsby Danielle Knight, Inter Press ServiceSeptember 15th, 2000A leaked document written by Sony Corporation, obtained by IPS, outlines a presentation made in July to fellow electronics companies at a conference in Brussels illustrating the various activities of environmental groups. It names specific US activists who seek to regulate waste caused by the electronics industry.

SOUTH ASIA: Digital Divide Sharpens Rich-Poor Gapby Ranjit Devraj, Inter Press ServiceJuly 21st, 2000South Asia has emerged as the most promising region for sourcing information technology (IT) expertise, but this is an achievement that is of use only to the rich nations, say critics.

US: Info-Cleansing on the Webby Marcia Stepanek, Business Week OnlineJuly 7th, 2000Beware the public relations person with a modem. Now corporate spinmeisters, too, can go online to track customers -- especially the disgruntled ones who vent their spleen in cyberspace.

USA: Spying for Free Tradeby Duncan Campbell and Paul Lashmar, The Independent (UK)July 2nd, 2000It is the new Cold War. The United States intelligence agencies, facing downsizing after the fall of the Berlin wall, have found themselves a new role spying on foreign firms to help American business in global markets.

USA: The Dot-com Obsession Warping the Economyby David Friedman, Los Angeles TimesFebruary 6th, 2000Spurred by unprecedented stock-market wealth, land-use, tax and development policies are skewing economic incentives almost exclusively toward a postindustrial, dot-com society. Alternatives that might better distribute technology and capital among the population and diversify the economy are being sacrificed.

USA: One Big Companyby Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the CorporationJanuary 12th, 2000AOL has been a leading proponent of open access -- meaning those who control high-speed internet access through cable systems or other means not have the power to discriminate against internet service providers that they do not control or favor. In buying Time Warner, AOL suddenly acquires one of the largest cable systems in the country, and gains a material interest in opposing open access.

MEXICO: Consumers Accuse Phone Company of Human Rights Violationsby Kent Paterson, BorderlinesAugust 11th, 1999For more than four years, Graciela Ramos and Women for Mexico have been a thorn in Telmex's side. The group has waged a campaign to force Mexico's privately-owned, local phone service giant to cancel measured service, provide devices that track the number of phone calls made from a home, and ensure that economically disadvantaged groups have access to both public and private telephones.

MEXICO: NGO Battles Telmex Planning Move into US Marketby Kent Paterson, BorderlinesSeptember 1st, 1998U.S. consumers may soon have yet another long-distance phone company competing for their monthly accounts. After years of wrangling, Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex) was recently granted approval by the Federal Communications Commission to test-market telephone services aimed at Spanish-speakers in Tucson, AZ.

India: New Computer Operating System Takes Country by Stormby B. Harsh, India Abroad News ServiceFebruary 9th, 1998MUMBAI -- Linux, a computer operating system that has thrown up the biggest ever challenge to Microsoft's monopoly and which got a boost with the Hollywood blockbuster ''Titanic'', is taking the Indian software industry by storm.

USA: RSI Suit May Finally Catch Up with Appleby Reynolds Holding, San Francisco ChronicleJanuary 19th, 1997For the first time ever, a keyboard maker has lost a lawsuit involving repetitive stress injury. And, with dozens of suits pending against it, this could be bad news for Apple.

USA: Intel Computer Chip Plant Tests New Environmental Rulesby Pratap Chatterjee, Inter Press ServiceOctober 14th, 1996SAN FRANCISCO -- The 1.3-billion-dollar expansion of a computer chip plant near Phoenix, Arizona, heralds a new era in environmental regulation, according to company and U.S. government officials.